Wednesday July 4, 2007
AFP
Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen Wednesday demanded better disaster preparedness following last week's deadly air crash and lashed out at his officials for failing to coordinate rescue efforts.
Twenty-two people, including South Korean and Czech tourists, were killed when their chartered plane slammed into a mountain in Cambodia's worst air disaster in a decade.
It took search teams more than two days to find the wreck in dense forest in southern Cambodia, and it remains unclear whether any of the passengers survived the initial impact, only to die of their wounds while awaiting rescue.
"There are many more planes flying through our air space ... we should better prepare for any accident," he told a workshop on disaster management.
"Our command structure, our evaluation of the situation and our lack of equipment caused us many problems" during last week's search efforts, he said, criticising officials for stumbling blindly around in the jungle looking for the crash.
He also said they had held a religious ceremony in an attempt to divine the plane's location.
Hun Sen ordered officials to stockpile chainsaws confiscated from illegal loggers for use in future searches, as well as acquire metal-cutting tools and better maps.
"Just trying to find the right saw delayed us for hours at a time," he said.
Officials said earlier this week that the doomed plane's flight data recorders were still being evaluated in an attempt to discover what caused the crash.
South Korean Ambassador to Cambodia Shin Hyun-Seok told Korean media last week that the pilot had failed to raise the plane's altitude after diverting off course into the mountain range to avoid a storm.
"The pilot, of course, received a green light from the control tower to change course but the pilot failed to heed further directions from the control tower to raise the plane's altitude," he told Yonhap news agency.
Twenty-two people, including South Korean and Czech tourists, were killed when their chartered plane slammed into a mountain in Cambodia's worst air disaster in a decade.
It took search teams more than two days to find the wreck in dense forest in southern Cambodia, and it remains unclear whether any of the passengers survived the initial impact, only to die of their wounds while awaiting rescue.
"There are many more planes flying through our air space ... we should better prepare for any accident," he told a workshop on disaster management.
"Our command structure, our evaluation of the situation and our lack of equipment caused us many problems" during last week's search efforts, he said, criticising officials for stumbling blindly around in the jungle looking for the crash.
He also said they had held a religious ceremony in an attempt to divine the plane's location.
Hun Sen ordered officials to stockpile chainsaws confiscated from illegal loggers for use in future searches, as well as acquire metal-cutting tools and better maps.
"Just trying to find the right saw delayed us for hours at a time," he said.
Officials said earlier this week that the doomed plane's flight data recorders were still being evaluated in an attempt to discover what caused the crash.
South Korean Ambassador to Cambodia Shin Hyun-Seok told Korean media last week that the pilot had failed to raise the plane's altitude after diverting off course into the mountain range to avoid a storm.
"The pilot, of course, received a green light from the control tower to change course but the pilot failed to heed further directions from the control tower to raise the plane's altitude," he told Yonhap news agency.
2 comments:
Can't wait to see this guy die from smoking. Poor Cambodian, their leader won't care for them. We didn't even vote for him but still this guy shamelessly want to stay in power. HUN SEN will go to hell cause he is really hurt Camboidan physically and mentally, oppression on their own people he will be like SADAM HUSSEIN. When people like him got to paranoid he will do anything to secure his position.
Hi....
I don't think Hun Sen is the issue! He is only a blind cheap dog trapped within who is allowed to bark at a particular time to confuse poor Khmer mentality.
What is the real issue is the CPP's structure, in particular the chain of Army command. CPP, the enemy within, is a Vietnamese's machination in diguise with long term goal of annexing Cambodia with Vietnam. It has strategic personnels, very capable of any emergency response but decisively used only in protecting their long term gaol/power base in swallowing Khmer land.
When this generation lapsed, probably in 2-3 decades, Khmer land could be annexed with Vietnam.
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